Fathers will also be able to apply for maintenance for their children through the new child maintenance fund when it is up and running.
Minister of Family, Culture, Sports and Youth Stephen Lashley said that the introduction of a child maintenance fund was to assist mothers whose child support payments had been delayed. However, he said that there were still many more interventions to be implemented to further assist in the care and protection of the children.
Speaking yesterday at the ceremony to announce Barbados’ Champion for Children, attorney-at-law Faith Marshall-Harris, at United Nations House, Lashley said that the Maintenance Act would be amended to ensure that fathers could apply for child maintenance at the Magistrates’ Court.
Last week Tuesday during the debate in the House of Assembly, Lashley said that the child maintenance fund would provide $50 per week for each child not supported financially by its father and would be administered through the Magistrates’ Court.  (LK)
